49ers film room: 49ers season-long red zone issues highlighted in week 10 despite the win

The 49ers made several mistakes in the red zone that could have cost them the week 10 game in Tampa Bay.

The 49ers certainly don’t win easy these days. Nowhere was that more apparent than in a tough, gritty 23-20 win over the Buccaneers in week 10 in the final two seconds of the game. Under Shanahan, the 49ers are 5-1 since 2019 out of the bye week with three of those wins being by less than seven points. It wasn’t really all that different this season. And they only didn’t score 30+ in this game because the kicker, Jake Moody, missed three field goals.

The game was much closer than it should’ve been, with the 49ers special teams largely responsible for keeping the game closer than it needed to be. In the third quarter with the Buccaneers trailing 10-3 and set to give the ball back to the 49ers for their first offensive possession of the second half, yet another punt return blunder eerily similar to the one in the Super Bowl cost them a possession and a Buccaneers touchdown, making it 10-10.

Of course, everything is intimately tied to one another and cascades outward when things go wrong. Jake Moody lined up for six field goal attempts because the 49ers offense failed to score touchdowns except on two drives and only managed to get into the red zone three times, where they scored one touchdown and where Jake Moody made 2 of his 3 field goals from. Three trips, one touchdown.

Currently, the 49ers rank 4th highest in the NFL in red zone scoring attempts per game at 4.2, 9th in the NFL in red zone touchdowns per game at 2.0, but 28th in the NFL in touchdowns per red zone trip at 47%. That is the real issue here. The red zone trips aren’t yielding touchdowns, yet. And the same issues that plagued them through 8 weeks bit them in week 10 after the bye. Those issues: player execution more than anything. I don’t really think play calling is an issue outside what they are doing on first down.

An aspect of the 49ers offense that’s as predictable as the sun coming up everyday is the first down run rate once they get into the red zone. On 45 first down attempts in the red zone this season, the offense has run the ball 33 times at 2.36 yards per attempt. Nearly 75% of the time on first down in the red zone, they’re handing the ball off. It hasn’t been good.

Against a middling rushing defense, the 49ers were unable to move the ball by running on the Buccaneers, even while Tampa Bay is 18th in rushing success rate, in the bottom half of the NFL. Down to down in this one, Tampa Bay just executed better than the 49ers did.

The offense is running a wham play to the right side where the tight end will “insert” block the 3-technique defensive tackle and the guard will down block to his left. Deebo has to cut across and block the nickel defender inserting into the B-gap there but can’t get there in time to block him.

Deebo could’ve taken a better angle, meaning a flatter angle, to get underneath the defender but that doesn’t make the block any easier to execute. Brendel should be getting to the second level but somehow manages to get picked off by the defensive tackle and McCaffrey has nowhere to go as the run gets bottled up.

After this play, Brock missed two throws that were there and in my opinion weren’t the right choices for each throw, but nonetheless the throws were still there to be made and he just missed them.

On 2nd down after the no-gain run play above, the 49ers get into a 3x1 bunch formation where Purdy motions tight end Eric Saubert across the formation. The motion reveals red zone quarters coverage from the Buccaneers with a box coverage 4 over 2 to the left of the offensive formation. No one bounced over with McCaffrey out of the backfield but Brock never saw it.

Post-snap, Brock needed to see the coverage rotation was away to the two receiver side passing strength and the linebacker bounced out with Saubert carried him up the sideline leaving the middle of the field wide open.

The other half of this miss is even if he wasn’t anticipating McCaffrey to be that wide open and didn’t see the rotation, he had Pearsall with enough separation to hit this throw but it was too high and Pearsall couldn’t elevate enough to get it. 

This seemed to be an issue with Brock nearly all game, passes coming out high and late. On 3rd down, he made similar mistakes in reading the coverage and then missing the throw. 

The 49ers offense is again in a 3x1 formation but spread out and no motion. The Bucs are playing red zone quarters again. This time, the linebacker covers McCaffrey out of the backfield and Shanahan, anticipating this, called a play that gave McCaffrey a 2-way go. McCaffrey cut outside off the leverage.

But Brock never went there despite post-snap indicators that he should have. Again, whether he saw the rotation or not is something only he can answer. Despite that, he still had a window to fit this pass into Kittle but he airmailed it out of bounds here.

This throw has to be made. He made the throw more difficult as well with his heel click vice not having cleats in the ground and not being aligned to the throw. Just the added movements and small mistakes that compound the issue and make the throw a tick late. But the throws were there to be made.

Later in the third quarter, Brock took a sack in the red zone but I wouldn’t charge this sack to him at all. 100% of the credit for giving up this sack should go to running back Isaac Guerendo instead.

Guerendo motions down to the wing position just to the left of Trent Williams. He’s still a pass protector first and has to check for an extra rusher. Moving to the edge here gives him a clearly defined check read and making him responsible for the edge instead of having to check all the way across the formation.

The offensive line is in a “rip” protection call, a 4-man slide to the right with Trent Williams responsible for the edge. With defenses aware of where the offense is sliding the pass protection, Shanahan’s counter is to provide extra protection up front by adding to the blocking and Guerendo busted his assignment.

Whatever the Bucs would decide to send here, four or six rushers, the 49ers would have enough bodies to pick up the rush and give Brock time to find a throw. Guerendo instead chip’s the edge instead of staying in to block the edge. The linebacker over Williams walks down late and Williams picks him up and the 49ers pass protection minus Guerendo holds up.

Another way we know this sack is on Guerendo is Trent Williams’s reaction after the play and seeing Brock on the turf. Williams goes ballistic and is looking in Guerendo’s direction downfield. With Williams picked off by the linebacker, Guerendo had to secure that edge and didn’t.

On the touchdown drive, the offense threw incomplete on first down and faced 2nd and 10 with the potential to spiral out of control from there. The offense is in a high leverage situation on first down with potential for a big play here, and they broke tendency and dialed up a play action pass.

The play call is drift swirl with Jauan Jennings on the drift route. The throwing lane is tight but Brock does an excellent job of looking off the middle of the field safety who’s potentially sitting in the drift window. The look off gets the safety to open to the passing strength so Brock immediately comes back to Jennings when he sees this and fires a missile to Jennings in the end zone.

Jennings threw off the timing of the throw and slowed down for some reason whereas if he keeps running, the ball is much more catchable. Instead, he changes his pace after the in cut portion of the stem and kind of drifts into the pass, allowing the defender in trail to recover and interfere with his catch attempt. Down in the low red zone, timing is sped up and there was no reason for Jennings to slow down. 

On the next play, Brock made an incredible off schedule play to Kittle in the very back corner of the end zone when no one was open on 2nd down.

He bought himself some time with some nice pocket movement, still saw he had nothing available to him, and broke from the pocket to his left. With a defender bearing down on him, he let a dime of a throw go to Kittle and put it in a spot only Kittle could catch it. Kittle secured it with two feet down in the corner and the 49ers took a 20-17 lead.

Outlook

The red zone issues should start to sort themselves out as the weeks go on here in the second half of the season with McCaffrey back. Being in the top 10 in red zone scoring touchdowns and attempts per game should start yielding a swing in the other direction with actual touchdowns as Purdy and McCaffrey find their rhythm together again. I suspect Purdy saw those two potential throws he passed up and will keep that in his back pocket for future weeks.

The offense is still very good, and they were three Jake Moody misses from a 30 point win despite the execution errors. And the game was closer than it should’ve been thanks to special teams yielding a short field to the Bucs offense. All of those reasons highlight the need for the offense to find a way to score touchdowns when they can because right now the entire team is counting on them to shoulder the burden. They’re too good now on offense not to. Let’s see if they can.